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lib/DBD/SQLcipher/VirtualTable/PerlData.pm  view on Meta::CPAN

In all examples below, the common part is that the Perl
program should connect to the database and then declare the
C<PerlData> virtual table module, like this

  # connect to the database
  my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:SQLcipher:dbname=$dbfile", '', '',
                          {RaiseError => 1, AutoCommit => 1});
                          # or any other options suitable to your needs
  
  # register the module
  $dbh->sqlite_create_module(perl => "DBD::SQLcipher::VirtualTable::PerlData");

Then create a global arrayref variable, using C<our> instead of C<my>,
so that the variable is stored in the symbol table of the enclosing module.

  package Foo::Bar; # could as well be just "main"
  our $rows = [ ... ];

Finally, create the virtual table and bind it to the global
variable (here we assume that C<@$rows> contains arrayrefs) :

  $dbh->do('CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.vtab'
          .'  USING perl(col1 INT, col2 TEXT, etc,
                         arrayrefs="Foo::Bar::rows');

In most cases, the virtual table will be for temporary use, which is
the reason why this example prepends C<temp.> in front of the table
name : this tells SQLcipher to cleanup that table when the database
handle will be disconnected, without the need to emit an explicit DROP
statement.

Column names (and optionally their types) are specified in the
virtual table declaration, just like for any regular table.

=head2 Arrayref example : statistics from files

Let's suppose we want to perform some searches over a collection of
files, where search constraints may be based on some of the fields
returned by L<stat>, such as the size of the file or its last modify
time.  Here is a way to do it with a virtual table :

  my @files = ... ; # list of files to inspect

  # apply the L<stat> function to each file
  our $file_stats = [ map {($_, stat $_)} @files];

  # create a temporary virtual table
  $dbh->do(<<"");
     CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.file_stats'
        USING perl(path, dev, ino, mode, nlink, uid, gid, rdev, size,
                         atime, mtime, ctime, blksize, blocks,
                   arrayrefs="main::file_stats");

  # search files
  my $sth = $dbh->prepare(<<"");
    SELECT * FROM file_stats 
      WHERE mtime BETWEEN ? AND ?
        AND uid IN (...)

=head2 Hashref example : unicode characters

Given any unicode character, the L<Unicode::UCD/charinfo> function
returns a hashref with various bits of information about that character.
So this can be exploited in a virtual table :

  use Unicode::UCD 'charinfo';
  our $chars = [map {charinfo($_)} 0x300..0x400]; # arbitrary subrange

  # create a temporary virtual table
  $dbh->do(<<"");
    CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE charinfo USING perl(
      code, name, block, script, category,
      hashrefs="main::chars"
     )

  # search characters
  my $sth = $dbh->prepare(<<"");
    SELECT * FROM charinfo 
     WHERE script='Greek' 
       AND name LIKE '%SIGMA%'


=head2 Colref example: SELECT WHERE ... IN ...

I<Note: The idea for the following example is borrowed from the
C<test_intarray.h> file in SQLcipher's source
(L<http://www.sqlite.org/src>).>

A C<colref> virtual table is designed to facilitate using an
array of values as the right-hand side of an IN operator. The
usual syntax for IN is to prepare a statement like this:

    SELECT * FROM table WHERE x IN (?,?,?,...,?);

and then bind individual values to each of the ? slots; but this has
the disadvantage that the number of values must be known in
advance. Instead, we can store values in a Perl array, bind that array
to a virtual table, and then write a statement like this

    SELECT * FROM table WHERE x IN perl_array;

Here is how such a program would look like :

  # connect to the database
  my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:SQLcipher:dbname=$dbfile", '', '',
                          {RaiseError => 1, AutoCommit => 1});
  
  # Declare a global arrayref containing the values. Here we assume
  # they are taken from @ARGV, but any other datasource would do.
  # Note the use of "our" instead of "my".
  our $values = \@ARGV; 
  
  # register the module and declare the virtual table
  $dbh->sqlite_create_module(perl => "DBD::SQLcipher::VirtualTable::PerlData");
  $dbh->do('CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.intarray'
          .'  USING perl(i INT, colref="main::values');
  
  # now we can SELECT from another table, using the intarray as a constraint
  my $sql    = "SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE some_col IN intarray";
  my $result = $dbh->selectall_arrayref($sql);